Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, May 2004, pages 36-37

European Press Review

ETA “inevitably comes to mind first,” wrote France’s Libération March 12. “But the massive scale of the Madrid attack,” the paper argued, “is more in line with what is known of al-Qaeda than with the methods of the Basque terrorists.”

“Did al-Qaeda want to punish Spain for its alliance with the United States and its part in the Iraq war?” asked Poland’s Gazeta Wyborcza the same day.

“A third possibility should not be ruled out: the collaboration between ETA and Islamist groups,” wrote Switzerland’s Tribune de Genève that day.

Just hours before Spaniards were due to vote in the country’s March 14 general election, claims allegedly by al-Qaeda that it carried out the attack were made public. The Socialists went on to win a surprise victory, following which the prime minister-elect, José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, said he would pull Spanish troops out of Iraq unless the United Nations took charge there.

Spain’s center-right El Mundo of March 15 saw the former ruling conservative Popular Party’s defeat as a backlash against outgoing Prime Minister José Maria Aznar and his foreign policy. Voters had “fiercely chastised the PP for its management of the crisis and had presented [the government] with the overdue bill for the war in Iraq,” the paper said. “Aznar signed the invoice [at the pre-war summit with Bush and Blair] in the Azores, and [his successor] Rajoy is paying it now.”

According to Spain’s La Razon of the same day, “The perception...that José Maria Aznar had committed us to an unjust war in Iraq in close alliance with the United States, added to the Madrid massacre, was a decisive factor.”

Elsewhere in Europe, newspapers pondered the implications of the Spanish attacks for their towns and cities.

France Soir’s March 15 front page featured a photomontage of Osama bin Laden with his arm around Aznar, asking “Who’s next?”—the implication being that al-Qaeda has opened a new front in Western Europe. The sentiment was echoed by the same day’s Le Parisien, which noted that “Europe is scared,” while warning that the Madrid attacks likely would have consequences in Europe similar to those of the Sept. 11 attacks in the U.S.

The threat of terrorism is widespread, Germany’s Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung agreed on March 15. Commenting on Berlin’s decision to step up security in Germany. the paper pointed out that “The Islamic terrorism targeting Spain is not a Spanish problem, and other European countries should not assume that it will only affect Aznar, Blair and Bush.”

The crisis cannot be addressed until the Arab world is treated with greater respect.

The UK’s Guardian of March 15 somewhat agreed: “Both Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have rightly warned of the dangers of even liberal democracies, using the new series of terrorist atrocities, to justify abuses of criminal and civil justice systems. This is self-defeating,” the paper wrote, “and only helps the terrorist organizations to achieve their goals.”

“Iraq cannot be allowed to fail,” wrote the March 19 Financial Times. After the “appalling chaos and breathtaking improvisation by the U.S.-led occupation authority,” the paper said, there at last has been some progress on reconstruction. “But the real problems have come in the management of security and the politics of the transition,” it noted.

Switzerland’s Tages-Anzeiger of the same day agreed: “It would be a catastrophe for the country if the transfer of power from the foreign occupiers to a freely-elected Iraqi civil government were to fail,” it said. “American bombs managed to break Saddam’s regime, but after one year, it’s still not clear who can fill the vacuum.”

Italy’s Corriere della Sera that day pointed out, however, that as a result of the invasion, “Iraq does now have a worthy constitution, and an economy that is on the way to recovery.” The paper also noted that, for the “first time in the country’s history,” there is a lively political, religious and cultural debate. “The conditions to build a new Iraq are there,” the paper concluded, “but time is running out.”

“Germany’s steadfast opposition to the Iraq war led to a division within Europe and a new ice age with the Bush administration in Washington,” noted an article on Germany’s Deutsche Welle’s Web site March 20. ”One year later, wounds have (mostly) been healed,” it acknowledged, “[but] vast stores of weapons of mass destruction have yet to be found, and coalition forces in Iraq are suffering heavy casualties in a guerrilla war with Islamic Jihadists.”

“The result is a victory for moderation,” the UK’s Daily Telegraph declared March 3, as agreement was being reached. It “gives hope that the various strands within Iraqi society—theocratic, secular, tribal, Shi’i, Kurd and Sunni—can be reconciled in a single state.”

The Financial Times on March 10 heralded the signing of the constitution as the “first real political success” of the coalition forces. “But, above all, it is a triumph for the Iraqis,” the newspaper said. “It embodies a rare spirit of compromise in a region where politics are usually conducted as a zero-sum, all-or-nothing and frequently very bloody game.” The newspaper pointed out that Shi’i leader Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani had accepted Islam being characterized as “a source of legislation”—balanced by the full panoply of democratic freedoms—rather than the fount of law.

The British tabloid newspaper The Sun was less sympathetic, having obtained a statement from the U.S. government outlining the detainees’ activities in Afghanistan, which allegedly included training in al-Qaeda camps, learning about bomb-making and urban warfare. “At long last the Americans have broken their silence and revealed details of exactly why four of the British detainees should not be freed,” wrote columnist Richard Littlejohn on March 19. “They received instruction in chemicals and explosives, fought alongside the Taliban against British and American troops. One of them was picked up at the home of Abu Zubaida, Osama bin Laden’s operations chief,” Littlejohn said.

The detainees denounced the charges as “U.S. propaganda.” One of the men, Jamal Udeen, told the UK’s Daily Mirror of March 12 that he had been tortured, saying he had been beaten by men in riot gear after refusing to have a mysterious injection, and shackled and attached to metal rings on the floor during interrogations. He told the paper he had gone to Pakistan to study Muslim culture, but was taken prisoner after straying into Afghanistan by mistake.

Spain’s El Pais of March 1 criticized British Prime Minister Tony Blair “for thinking that he had a universal license to spy and lie on the road to the Iraq war.” The paper warned, however, that “history is stubborn, and the…war trickery will continue to stalk Tony Blair for some time.”

“Mr. Annan has every reason to feel betrayed by the British, with whom he has close relations,” said the UK’s Independent on Feb. 27, adding that Britain will face “deep embarrassment” over the affair.

Lucy Jones is a free-lance journalist based in London.